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A  D  D  R  E  S 


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OF  THE 

[dirge  of  ;jhsitian$.  ;inb  >>urgcons, 


ANNUAL     COMMENCEMENT, 


MARCH  1st,    L871. 


CHARLTON     T.     LEWIS.    X'a,  \  <    ^fiT. 

Published    by  Request  of  the    Faculty  of  the  College. 


NEW    YOLK  : 

PRINTED   BY   THE    NKW    STORE    PRINTING    COMPANY 

205,  207.  900,  211,  uro313  BAST  T\\  Ki.i"n i  STKEBT. 

L871. 


da  -7-- 


i 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS 


College  jrf  pjpriatts  anfr  jshtrgemts 


AT    THEIR 


ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT, 

MARCH   1st,  1871. 

BY 

CHAKLTCOT   T.    LEWIS. 


f  trblisbrli  iitf  lUprst  nf  tjtf  /nntltif  nf  tjpe  Caller. 


} 


NEW    YORK: 
PRINTED    BY    THE    NEW  YORK    PRINTING    COMPANY, 

205,  207,  209,  211,  AND  213  EAST  TWELFTH  STREET. 
1871. 


•fl* 'COLLECTION 


2J£ 

/P7/ 


THE    PROFESSIONAL   SPIRIT  AND    SCIENTIFIC  MEDICINE. 


Young  Gentlemen  who  now  enter  the  medical  profession : 
Your  successful  course  of  study  has  qualified  you  to  enjoy  a  dis- 
play of  the  profound  ignorance  of  the  laity  in  the  mysteries  of 
your  art ;  and  I  have  heen  invited,  I  suppose,  as  "  the  most  sense- 
less and  fit  person  "  to  make  that  display.  In  order  that  it  may 
not  he  painful  as  well  as  amusing,  I  think  it  well  to  take  my  stand 
on  the  outer  wall  of  your  profession,  and  address  you  in  the  name 
of  the  general  public, — the  outside  barbarians,  who  have  never 
taken  the  oath  of  Hippocrates,  however  our  dangers  or  our  fears 
may  often  have  driven  us  to  sacrifice  his  favorite  fowl  to  ^Escu- 
lapius.  At  the  risk  of  saying  a  foolish  thing,  and  subject  to  cor- 
rection by  the  wise  heads  around  me,  I  propose  to  argue  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  such  thick,  high  wall  as  there  is  around  the 
profession  of  medicine ;  to  plead  in  behalf  of  the  people  at  large, 
who  want  to  get  nearer  to  you  and  know  more  about  your  busi- 
ness ;  in  short,  to  make  some  suggestions  upon  the  exaggerations 
of  the  professional  spirit  in  scientific  medicine. 

For  we  think  there  is  a  tendency  in  your  schools  to  bar  us  out. 
You,  gentlemen,  are  made  physicians  to-day  ;  and  "  physician  " 
means  "  student  of  nature."  It  is  a  great  name — a  symbol  of  all 
that  is  successful  and  glorious  in  the  history  of  mind.  But  it  is  a 
comprehensive  name,  too ;  and  a  medical  practitioner  who  isreally 
a  physician,  may  be  said,  in  the  words  of  Bacon,  to  have  taken 
all  knowledge  for  his  province.  Now,  this  is  not  consistent  with 
the  exclusiveness  of  the  ancient  medical  men.  They  used  all 
the  arts  of  priestcraft  to  conceal  the  secrets  of  their  school,  and  to 
keep  its  learning  apart  from  that  of  the  world.  The  healing  art 
was  made  mysterious  and  awful  in  itself;  it  was  associated  with 


43DB4Q4A 


solemn  movements,  with  strange  ceremonies,  with  a  lond-sonnd- 
in<*  dialect  which  meant  nothing  to  the  uninitiated,  and  thu-  it 
imposed  on  them,  as  far  greater  than  it  was.  This  policy  did 
not  always  succeed  perfectly.  Everybody  remembers  the  Scrip- 
ture  story  of  King  Asa,  who  "was  diseased  in  his  feet,  until  his 
disease  was  exceeding  great,  yet  in  his  disease  he  sought  not  unto 
the  Lord,  but  unto  the  physicians."  And  after  saying  that  he 
"  sought  unto  the  physicians,"  the  simple  chronicler  at  once  add-. 
li  and  Asa  slept  with  his  fathers,"  as  if  that  were  the  natural 
consequence.  It  would  seem  that  throughout  the  ancient  world 
there  were  many  people  who  agreed  with  him. 

But  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  this  imposing  policy,  let  me  can- 
didly ask  you  whether  tradition  has  not  preserved  some  traces 
of  it  in  the  profession?  To  the  unregulated  mind  of  an  outside 
observer  it  seems  so.  When  we  hear  medical  men  translating 
simple  thoughts  into  Latinized  jargon  ;  when  an  eminent  London 
lecturer  advises  his  class  to  amuse  or  deceive  sane  patients  with 
pretended  treatment,  pilvloe  panis  albi  and  the  like  ;  when  sim- 
ple folk  are  sent  off"  to  druggists  with  mysterious  abbreviations 
and  hieroglyphics  in  a  prescription,  such  as  Mel.  despumat.,  or 
Sacchar.  Alb.  3j.;  Aq.  distillat.  ?  ij. ;  when  a  practitioner  cannot 
tell  a  mother  whether  her  child  has  croup  or  not,  but  is  inclined 
to  hope  that  the  laryngitis  will  not  assume  a  pseudo-membrana- 
ceous  character ;  we  cannot  but  suspect  that  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  Asclepiadae  is  not  yet  quite  obsolete. 

All  this  is  far  from  being  applicable  to  you,  gentlemen,  or  to 
the  spirit  of  your  profession  here.  But  it  is  the  coarse  and  vulgar 
form  of  a  professional  Pharisaism  which  has  its  liner  aspects,  and 
these  are  found  everywhere.  They  are  not  merely  supported  1  >y 
custom  and  tradition,  but  by  the  nature  of  your  science.  This  is 
made  up  of  infinite  details,  and  the  close  study  of  detailed  knowl- 
edge tends  to  crowd  broad  results  out  of  the  mind,  and  even  to 
produce  a  contempt  for  them.  Especially  does  the  practice  of 
medicine  teach  that  general  rules  are  bad  guides.  The  physician 
finds  himself  hampered  and  embarrassed  by  the  vague  notions  of 
medicine  which  laymen  pick  up  in  their  reading,  and  circulate 
in  society  ;  and  so  tends  to  draw  more  and  more  strictly  the  line 
which  bounds  the  esoteric  learning:  of  his  tribe. 


This  reticence  is  natural,  therefore,  and  in  part  unavoidable. 
But  I  want  to  show  you  that  it  is  one  of  those  limitations  of  your 
science  which  is  to  be  struggled  against,  not  fostered.  The 
specialization  of  knowledge,  for  purposes  of  investigation,  must 
)e  reconciled  with  the  great  cause  of  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
which  is  the  education  of  the  world. 

Now  this  can  be  done,  for  it  has  been  done  in  other  branches 
}f  science.  Here  is  a  layman's  experience.  When  we  meet  an 
apgineer,  an  inventor,  a  naturalist,  we  find  him  eager  to  tell  us 
■ill  he  can  of  his  art.  The  foremost  of  these  men  stand  in  popular 
ecture-rooms,  giving  the  broad  outlines  of  their  knowledge  to  the 
public.  Your  mystery  is  the  only  one  on  which  a  popular  lec- 
ture is  unheard  of,  and  would  be  monstrous.  It  is  the  least 
communicative,  and  the  least  in  contact  with  public  opinion,  of 
all  the  professions.  Is  it  said  that  any  attempt  to  spread  medical 
knowledge  abroad  would  be  but  to  multiply  quackery,  and  would 
lead  incompetent  men  rashly  to  practise  on  themselves  and  others 
that  vague  half-knowledge  which  is  the  worst  form  of  ignorance? 
I  answer  that  it  is  ignorance  that  is  your  obstacle  now ;  it  is 
ignorance  that  makes  the  vulgar  mind  run  to  quacks  and  pre- 
tenders, and  distrust  true  science ;  and  is  your  remedy  to  be  more 
ignorance  ?  To  cure  darkness  by  excluding  light — to  cure  folly 
by  shutting  out  wisdom,  is  a  shining  instance  of  homoeopathic 
practice.  The  state  of  the  popular  mind  shows  the  results.  Law 
is  studied  in  schools,  and  freely  discussed  everywhere,  and  the 
public  understand  it  well  enough  not  to  practise  it.  Listen  to 
the  people's  proverbs.  They  say,  "  A  man  who  tries  his  own 
cause  has  a  fool  to  his  client."  If  they  understood  medicine  as 
well,  they  would  feel  and  say,  as  they  do  not  now,  "  The  man 
who  doctors  himself  has  a  fool  to  his  patient."  But  what  thev 
do  say  is  to  disparage  your  skill,  and  tell  us  absurdly  that  "  every 
man  at  forty  is  a  fool  or  a  physician." 

The  same  atmosphere  of  professional  exclusiveness  once  sur- 
rounded all  learning,  but  it  has  now  passed  away  from  most 
branches.  The  astrologer  dealt  in  signs  and  wonders,  but  the 
great  truths  of  astronomy  have  become  part  of  the  common  stock 
of  school-boy  learning  and  popular  literature.  Yet  the  people  in 
general  know  that  they  cannot  predict  eclipses  or  discover  aste- 


voids,  nor  do  they  listen  to  ignorant  pretenders  with  new  and  srild 
theories.  The  better  any  science  is  known  to  the  public  mind, 
the  more  that  mind  clings  to  and  trusts  the  real  masters  of  the 
science.  During  the  first  fifty  years  of  this  century,  nearly  every 
branch  of  science  was  cultivated  in  an  exclusive  spirit,  by  special 
students,  as  a  separate  school;  and  there  was  no  brotherhood 
among  them,  much  less  any  approach  to  the  popular  mind.  But 
the  last  twenty  years  are  a  new  epoch  in  science — -that  of  broad 
generalizations — that  of  clear  vision— that  of  brilliant  results  to  be 
stamped  forever  on  the  common  intelligence.  The  conservation 
of  force,  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  binding  all  animated 
nature  together,  the  associational  theory  of  mental  action,  are  in- 
stances of  splendid  efforts  in  this  direction.  The  discoveries  of 
spectrum  analysis  make  astronomy,  chemistry,  and  optics  all  one 
study.  The  uniform  theory  of  geology  links  it  inseparably  not 
only  with  chemistry,  physics,  and  astronomy,  but  with  natural 
history  and  with  the  science  of  man. 

Now  medicine,  as  a  science,  is  in  its  nature  a  sort  of  centre  and 
rallying-point  for  all  other  sciences.  It  is  in  a  sense  all  human 
knowledge,  and  demands  from  every  other  branch  its  best  con- 
tributions. From  chemistry  up  the  hierarchy  of  thought  to  psy- 
chology, and  from  the  arithmetical  collection  of  statistics  and 
reckoning  of  probabilities  up  to  the  profoundest  problems  of 
social  organization  and  morals,  there  is  no  sound  true  knowledge 
that  is  not  in  some  way  tributary  to  it.  And  yet,  while  in  all 
these  branches  the  spirit  of  inquiry  has  spread  through  the  world, 
and  humanity  itself  feels  that  they  are  working  with  it  in  their 
struggles,  scientific  medicine  has,  in  a  large  degree,  to  fight  its 
own  battles,  in  an  age  which  less  than  half  appreciates  it.  and 
which  often  seems  ready  to  listen  to  its  most  vulgar  and  incom- 
petent rivals.  Now  the  time  is  coming  for  medicine  to  assert  its 
place  in  the  popular  mind  as  a  teacher  of  truth,  no  less  estab- 
lished, no  less  instructive,  and  even  more  interesting,  than  that 
taught  by  any  of  its  sisters  or  handmaidens. 

This  is  desirable  for  larger  reasons  than  I  can  more  than  hint 
at  here.  Already  the  union  of  the  sciences  as  teachers  ot'  the 
people  has  revolutionized  modern  thought.  Metaphysics  were 
the  highest  study  of  men  for  many  ages;  shaped  their  religious 


belief  and  inspired  their  views  of  Nature ;  but  the  scienees  have 
overthrown  metaphysics.  Even  thirty  years  ago,  Kant,  Schelling, 
Hegel,  were  the  lords  of  the  world  of  mind ;  but  who  hears  of 
them  now  ?  They  had  to  be  destroyed  in  order  to  prepare  the 
way  for  a  truer,  richer  philosophy,  which  must  control  future 
thought ;  but  that  philosophy  is  not  yet  established,  and  cannot 
be,  unless  medical  science  furnishes  the  materials.  The  metaphy- 
sics never  made  a  step  towards  it.  The  human  mind  has  but  one 
mode  of  discovering  new  truth — induction  from  particular  facts. 
Not  perceiving  this,  the  metaphysicians  for  ages  turned  round 
and  round  in  their  own  treadmill.  While  exact  science  has  been 
steadily  advancing,  with  "  Let  there  be  light "  upon  her  banners, 
and  ever  new  worlds  of  daring  thought  adding  their  glory  to  her 
train,  the  halls  of  metaphysics  stand  to  this  day  a  mere  circus  for 
the  showy  wrestling  of  mental  athletes.  The  mind  which  seeks 
for  truth  by  metaphysical  methods,  amid  the  surer  training  of 
this  age,  is  gathering  it  by  a  lame  footman,  while  his  neighbors 
use  the  telegraph.  He  makes  his  mental  journeys  on  the  old  blind 
horse  speculation,  who  finds  his  own  way  without  a  rein  over  the 
boundless  heath,  while  the  rest  of  the  world  is  rushing  and  whis- 
tling by  on  paths  of  iron  demonstration,  with  the  chained  forces 
of  Nature  as  attendants. 

But  shall  Philosophy  be  abandoned?  Is  there  to  be  no  organ- 
izing principle  for  human  thought  %  That  which  has  seemed  to 
make  all  truth  worth  striving  for,  the  hope  of  a  highest  truth  to 
be  its  sum  and  goal,  that  hope  has  been  the  pole-star  of  Earth's 
bravest  and  best  minds,  and  must  we  turn  our  backs  on  it  for- 
ever %  Philosophy,  the  gorgeous  dream  of  Plato,  the  grim  sport  of 
Kant,  the  ideal  love  of  Schelling,  the  dearest  faith  of  Coleridge — 
is  it  all  in  vain?  No,  Philosophy  shall  still  be  sought  and  found. 
By  the  touch  of  her  guiding  hand  and  the  impulse  of  her  voice 
we  know  her  near,  and  know  that  the  crown  is  on  her  brow 
and  the  glory  in  her  smile,  though  our  eyes  lack  the  anointing 
and  cannot  see.  She  leads  us  to  the  threshold  of  a  temple  vaster 
than  the  world,  with  room  within  for  the  soaring  of  the  loftiest 
mind,  for  the  expansion  of  the  enthusiast's  soul.  She  tells  us 
that  its  shrines  are  rich  with  the  spoils  of  infinite  beauty,  and 
bright  with  gems  of  enduring  truth  ;  and  that  we  may  enter,  and 


8 

all  these  shall  be  ours,  if  we  but  read  well  two  words  whieh  she 
has  graven  in  the  eold  marble  above.  Painfully  we  elimb ;  we 
feel  for  the  letters  like  the  bliud ;  we  trace  in  them  forma 
avc  know;  the  Gamma,  theTheta,  the  Sigma  of  our  boyish  tasks 
are  here.  The  words  are  familiar ;  every  school-boy  has  read  them, 
and  every  nation  made  them  household  words;  but  to  the  pier- 
cing eye  of  our  guide,  her  Gnotiji  Seauton  is  still  unread,  and  we 
are  still  groping  at  the  threshold. 

But  not  forever.  All  science  is  the  path  to  a  new  Philosophy. 
All  methods  of  discovery  tried  in  other  branches  of  knowledge 
are  making  ready  for  transfer  to  a  higher  work,  and  transfigura- 
tion by  a  higher  truth.  And  your  branch,  gentlemen,  has  its  large 
share  in  this  future.  The  fall  of  the  metaphysician  is  the  call 
for  the  physician.  It  is  in  nervous  physiology,  in  the  mechanics 
of  thought  and  life,  in  the  observation  of  morbid  states  of  the 
brain,  and  of  the  whole  body  as  connected  with  it,  and  in  the 
records  of  medical  jurisprudence  and  of  lunatic  asylums,  that 
Psychology  in  the  future  is  to  find  its  most  fruitful  materials  and 
its  surest  guides.  The  importance  of  the  study  of  insanity  in 
the  general  science  of  mind,  and  therefore  in  that  of  method,  has 
not  yet  begun  to  be  understood  by  the  world,  and  cannot  be  until 
physicians  have  taught  the  world  that  man  and  Nature  are  not 
degraded,  but  elevated,  by  whatever  brings  them  nearer  to- 
gether; that  there  is  nothing  unworthy  of  human  nobleness  in 
measuring  the  speed  with  which  the  will  sends  its  messages  along 
the  nerves,  the  speed  of  the  epileptic  aura  from  some  distant  nerve- 
centre  to  the  brain,  the  amount  of  phosphates  produced  by  an 
hour's  hard  thinking ;  until,  in  short,  physicians  take  their  place 
more  distinctly  in  that  great  body  of  seekers  for  truth  who  know 
no  profession  but  her  service,  and  wear  no  badge  but  her  name. 

Your  profession  has  already  made  most  splendid  contributions 
to  the  common  stock  of  intelligence,  and  has  acted  powerfully 
on  the  general  mind  ;  but  it  has  sometimes  done  so  in  spite  of  the 
professional  spirit,  and  not  by  its  direct  influence.  When  the 
father  of  comparative  anatomy,  William  Harvey,  sat  with 
Charles  I.  under  a  hedge  at  Edgehill,  and,  with  the  bullets  flying 
around  them,  read  to  the  King  his  strange  new  views  of  the  action 
of  the  heart,  and  how  the  arteries  are  not  arteries,  or  air-tubes,  at 


ill,  but  part  of  the  circle  of  the  blood,  he  did  not  dream  of  ever 
ioing  more  than  to  convince  the  first  men  of  his  age  and  of  his 
>wn  profession.  But  to-day  that  wonderful  circuit  of  life  is  part 
)f  the  common  consciousness  of  men.  And  so  it  will  be  with 
nany  of  your  own  professional  mysteries.  The  general  nature  of 
so-called  local  morb  i  actions ;  the  asthenic  character  of  fever 
md  inflammation;  the  value  of  hypodermic  injections  in  adminis- 
tering certain  drugs ;  the  proper  uses  and  limits  of  anaesthesia ; 
these  great  landmarks  in  the  growth  of  practical  medicine  will 
become  part  of  the  common  knowledge  of  intelligent  men.  Why 
is  it  that  the  same  eminent  teachers,  who  in  the  class-room 
magnify  the  importance  of  hygienic  therapeutics,  have  been 
known  to  go  out  to  the  people,  and,  by  their  practice  at  least,  to 
encourage  the  superstition  that  the  whole  of  therapeutics  consists 
in  giving  doses?  Why,  is  it  that  the  public  are  not  yet  able  to 
understand  how  utterly  without  value  is  all  the  popular  testimony 
to  the  efficacy  of  particular  drugs,  and  that  no  two  cases  can 
ever  be  compared  together  to  any  purpose  without  a  scientific 
diagnosis  of  each  ?  Why,  but  because  the  traditions  of  the  pro- 
fession shut  it  in  from  the  communion  it  ought  to  have  with 
the  mind  of  the  world  ? 

The  loss  of  power  by  this  means  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the 
noblest  triumphs  of  your  profession  hitherto  have  been  gained, 
not  within  its  own  bounds,  but  beyond  them  ;  not  in  the  sporadic 
saving  of  individuals  here  and  there,  but  in  the  sweeping  preser- 
vation of  communities  :  through  the  power  of  public  opinion,  con- 
trolled by  your  influence  on  the  popular  mind.  What  has  medi- 
cine done  for  modern  society  ?  Far  more  than  is  commonly 
dreamed  of.  Statistics  show  that  the  average  duration  of  life  in 
great  cities  has  more  than  doubled  within  two  centuries.  In  for- 
mer ages,  Europe  was  desolated  by  pestilences  ;  one  of  which, 
the  black  death  of  13i7,  is  credibly  computed  to  have  left  behind 
it  twenty-five  millions  of  dead — one-fourth  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion. But  the  common  wants  of  air,  food,  and  cleanliness  are 
now  too  well  understood  and  met,  in  all  the  ways  of  life,  for  such 
a  disaster  to  humanity  to  recur  ;  and  it  is  to  the  medical  profession 
the  world  owes  this  change.  The  precious  store  the  physicians 
carry  down  the  ages  leaks  on  every  side,  and  filters  through  thought 


10. 

and  custom,  transforming  our  lives.  The  single  discovery  of  Jen- 
ner,  taught  and  practised  by  enlightened  physicians  until  it  is  a 
social  law,  has  doubtless  saved  more  lives,  and  contributed  more 
to  the  wealth  and  happiness  of  mankind,  than  all  the  direct  treat- 
ment of  disease  by  all  the  physicians  that  ever  lived. 

So  it  is  with  the  triumphs  that  await  medicine  in  the  future. 
Why  are  there  sects  and  schools  in  this  community,  which  aim 
to  rival  scientific  medicine  in  popular  favor,  and  even  to  drive  it 
from  the  field?  It  is  because  of  the  very  ignorance  among  the 
people  which  your  professional  exclusiveness  fosters.  You  with- 
hold from  them  the  very  means  of  judging  your  claims,  and  un- 
derstanding your  value.  I  have  heard  within  two  weeks,  in  a 
large  company  of  intelligent  people,  a  serious  discussion  of  the 
pretended  curative  power  in  the  will  of  a  quack,  applied  by  ma- 
nipulations of  diseased  organs.  Such  a  fact  seems  to  me  to  be 
a  reproach  to  the  physicians  of  the  community.  If  they  had  done 
their  full  duty  in  the  education  of  the  people,  we  should  hear  no 
more  of  Mesmeric  doctors,  vegetable  Eclectics,  dilute  potencies, 
and  patented  panaceas.  These  things  would  ave  gone  to  their 
own  place  in  the  limbo  of  amulets,  horoscopes,  and  witchcraft. 
To  drive  all  these  superstitions  from  the  world  is  a  worthy  task 
for  a  noble  science ;  but  it  must  be  done  by  diffusing  knowledge, 
not  by  wrapping  it  in  mystery. 

Your  skill  will  always  be  best  appreciated  where  the  nature  of 
it  is  best  understood.  To  vulgar  ignorance,  the  optical  account 
of  the  microscope  explains  all  the  discoveries  it  has  made,  and 
more  ;  and  the  boor  does  not  doubt  that  if  he  had  the  instrument 
he  could  make  them  all.  He  is  like  the  man  who,  when  asked  if 
he  could  play  the  violin,  answered,  "I  suppose  I  could ;  I  never 
tried/'  But  the  man  who  has  tried,  and  who  knows  how  much 
skill  of  hand  and  eye  and  how  much  contrivance  go  into  its  most 
common  manipulations,  is  the  man  to  honor  and  trust  your  micro- 
scopic diagnosis.  He  who  appreciates  the  extent  and  variety  of 
your  materia  medica,  and  has  learned  something  of  chemistry, 
and  of  the  strange  changes  in  physiological  effects  often  produced 
by  combining  elements,  is  the  man  intelligently  to  admire  yonr, 
art  in  devising  an  elaborate  formula.     Thus  the  appreciation  of 


11 

your  patients,  and  your  fees  too,  will  grow  with  the  medical  edu- 
cation of  the  community. 

But  I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  adequately  to  set  before  you 
the  higher  motive.  Your  science  is,  in  an  important  sense,  the 
mother  of  the  sciences  ;  for  the  desire  to  be  saved  from  death  was 
the  first  and  is  still  the  mightiest  motive  power  in  scientific  inves- 
tigation. It  makes  all  other  studies  tributary,  and  so  is  an  avenue 
to  them  all.  It  is  essential  to  its  worth  that  it  be  pursued  in  a 
scientific  spirit ;  in  the  spirit  that  looks  upwards  as  well  as  down- 
wards ;  that  keeps  in  view  the  largest  truth  as  well  as  the  small- 
est fact.  This  spirit  finds  its  satisfaction  less  even  in  the  successes 
of  the  moment  than  in  their  relations  to  the  larger  successes  and 
interests  of  the  truth  out  of  which  they  grow.  And,  to  feel  this, 
the  physician  must  be  more  than  an  executive  officer  in  the 
hierarchy  of  thought ;  more  than  a  dispenser  of  the  bounty  and 
skill  others  have  accumulated  ;  he  must  be  a  discoverer. 

If  I  might  assume  to  advise  the  humblest  youth  entering  on 
the  struggle  for  a  livelihood  by  the  healing  art,  I  would  say  to  him, 
Select  at  once  some  subject  of  inquiry  in  your  profession  which 
interests  you,  and  which  the  ablest  teachers  have  not  made  clear 
to  you  ;  and  carry  it  with  you  night  and  day.  Seek  everywhere 
for  the  facts  and  laws  bearing  on  it,  and  keep  them  systematically 
recorded.  This  work  will  not  hinder  success  in  practice,  but  will 
give  you  power  in  every  department.  Follow  the  investigation,  if 
it  take  years,  until  you  have  solved  the  problem,  and  can  distinctly 
move  one  step  forward,  in  some  direction,  the  boundaries  of  science* 
Make  yourself  a  specialist  in  something,  however  small ;  but  link 
your  specialty  on  all  sides  with  the  broader  aims  and  work  of 
your  life.  Then  will  the  accuracy  of  observation,  the  patience 
in  waiting,  the  closeness  of  thought,  the  comprehensiveness  of  view, 
which  every  original  research  imperatively  forces  on  the  inquirer, 
come  to  characterize  all  that  you  do,  and  every  case  will  be  han- 
dled by  you  in  the  masterly  spirit  of  a  scientific  discoverer.  It  is 
not  superior  genius,  nor  greater  opportunities  for  study,  nor  more 
leisure,  that  has  given  to  Germany  the  leadership  of  the 
■world  in  contemporary  medicine ;  it  is  precisely  this  habit,  diffused 
everywhere  through  the  profession  there,  of  mining  constantly,  in 
whatever  grounds,  for  the  new  truth  that  lies  buried. 


12 

I  know  the  obstacles  in  the  way  :  difficulties  external,  now  in 
the  claims  of  active  business,  now  in  the  want  of  books  and  of 
opportunities  to  observe;  difficulties  internal,  in  self-distrust,  in 
weariness,  in  want  of  precise  early  discipline,  in  the  discourag 

memory  of  failures.  But  these  are  but  limitations,  which, 
whether  you  can  do  it  or  not,  you  must  try  to  overleap.  What 
if  you  fail  again  and  always?  It  is  the  effort  to  master  these  that 
has  accomplished  all  greatness.  It  is  impossibilities  that  have  al- 
ways been  the  opportunities  for  splendid  achievements.  For 
men  searched  the  heavens  for  human  fates  inscribed  in  Btare 
around  the  great  throne.  They  failed,  but  they  gave  birth  to 
astronomy.  It  is  in  your  science  and  its  kindred  branches  espe- 
cially that  failures  have  been  constantly  the  keys  of  triumph. 
The  long,  persistent  hunt  for  the  philosopher's  stone  was  the 
source  of  our  chemistry.  The  endless  toil  of  the  laboratory  to  find 
the  panacea,  gave  its  materia  medica  to  medicine.  These  men 
kept  seeking  always  for  the  truth  of  which  they  felt  the  must  ur- 
gent need  ;  they  failed,  but  they  built  better  than  they  knew, 
and  such  failures  are  the  guides  and  the  glories  of  the  coming  on 
of  time. 

See  how  the  progress  of  medicine  has  defied  its  limitations. 
AVhen  the  greatest  mind  that  ever  wrote  wished  to  point  out  with 
emphasis  the  helplessness  of  science  before  our  wants,  and  to 
mock  and  humble  your  art,  what  task  did  he  set  before  it  i 

"  Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased  ? 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow  V 
Rase  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain, 
And,  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 
Cleanse  the  stufFd  bosom  of  that  perilous  grief 
That  weighs  upon  the  heart  ?  " 

Since  this  was  impossible,  he  cried  : 

"  Throw  physic  to'the  dogs!     I'll  none  of  it." 

But  to-day  the  ministry  of  the  diseased  mind  is  in  every  asy- 
lum ;  the  written  troubles  are  rased  from  the  brain  in  the  daily 
work  of  every  physician,  and  the  sweet  oblivious  antidote  stands 
soothingly  ready  at  every  bedside.  "What  imagination  is  bold 
enough  now  to  outdo  Shakspeare,  and  to  fix  the  limits  of  the 
possible  in  your  future  progress  ( 


13 

It  is  in  this  view  of  your  profession,  gentlemen,  that  we  of  the 
outside  world  would  eorae  to  press  our  claims  upon  you,  and  to 
ask  for  closer  communion  with  your  intellectual  work.  And  it 
is  in  this  aspect,  too,  that  your  work  will  find  its  best  inspiration. 
It  lifts  the  human  race,  and  the  horizon  of  man  is  enlarged. 
You  take  with  you  from  this  school  not  only  the  lessons,  but  the 
influence  and  example  of  more  than  one  man,  whose  scientific  la- 
bors are  a  model  for  your  own  ;  more  than  one  Columbus  of  the 
world  of  mind,  who,  with  his  yearning  for  truth  as  a  compass,  has 
put  forth  on  the  immeasurable  voyage  in  search  of  new  continents 
of  knowledge.  True,  the  work  is  never  finished  ;  what  is  to  be 
done  is  the  more  arduous  by  what  is  accomplished ;  and  that  which 
the  poet  calls  "  artistry's  haunting  curse,  the  incomplete,"  is  on 
our  intellectual  work  forever.  But  worthy  pursuit  is  itself  the 
crown  of  enjoyment,  and  turns  this  curse  into  a  blessing.  Every 
step  which  enlarges  the  field  of  the  known  spreads  vaster  the  veil 
of  the  unknown, — in  the  words  of  a  great  physician,  "  the  larger 
the  world  of  light,  the  larger  the  circle  of  darkness  that  surrounds 
it."  ]^ot  political  history  alone,  but  mind  has  a  West  to  which  the 
star  of  empire  moves ;  but  it  does  not,  like  our  measured  planet, 
complete  its  course  and  stand  in  its  old  place  again.  Here  no 
sun,  forever  returning  on  its  path,  tells  a  daily  tale  of  limitation, 
and  rounds  the  cycle  of  possible  achievement  at  its  starting-point ; 
for  our  world  is  the  infinite,  and  its  lights  are  "  thoughts  that 
wander  through  eternity."  The  explorer  looks  for  no  end,  even 
in  the  happy  isles,  and  among  the  great  he  once  has  known  ;  to 
him  all  personal  ends  sink  more  and  more  in  the  great  pursuit 
before  him,  and  going  forth,  with  all  his  conscious  weaknesses 
upon  him,  to  bear  the  light  of  mind  into  the  abysses  of  darkness, 
he  cheerfully  sings  : 

"  But  blind  or  lame,  or  sick  or  sound, 
We  follow  that  which  flies  before ; 
We  know  the  merry  world  is  round, 
And  we  may  sail  for  evermore." 


r      MAY        1945 


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COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


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U  £™£  1871 


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